Meditations: A New Translation (Modern Library Classics)

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Because anger too is weakness, as much as breaking down and giving up the struggle. Both are deserters: the man who breaks and runs, and the one who lets himself be alienated from his fellow humans. 11.9

Then what should you work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring. 4.33 Objectivejudgment now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance, now at this very moment. Of all external events. That’s all you need. 9.6 Everything you’re trying to reach–by taking the long way round–you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to God, and guide the present towards reverence and justice. 12.1 The third discipline of will is in a sense the counterpart to the second, the discipline of action. Action governs our approach to the things in our control. The discipline of will governs our attitude to things that are not within our controlThe things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the quality of your thoughts. 5.16

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work–as a human being…I am going to what I was born for.” 5.1 To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring. How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Throughpatience, honesty, and humility. 8.51 What is divinedeservesour respect because it is good; what is human deserves our affection because it is like us. 2.13 It never ceases toamazeme: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. 12.4And to those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things–they help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well. 6.42 The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. 4.18 This requires not merely passiveacquiescence in what happens, but active cooperation with the world, with fate and, above all,with other human beings. We were made, Marcus tells us over and over, not for ourselves but for others, and our nature is fundamentally unselfish. In our relationship with others we must work for their collective good, while treating them justly and fairly as possible. Something (bad) happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning. 3.26 Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? Can any process take place without something being changed? 7.18

The mind without passion is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once we take refuge there we are safe forever. 8.48

It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness — as a rational being and a citizen. 3.6 Awaken; return to yourself. Now, no longer asleep, knowing they were only dreams, clear-headed again, treat everything around you as a dream. 6.31 Not to be driven this way and that, but to always behave with justice and to see things as they are. 4.22 A straightforward, honest person should be like someone who stinks: when you’re in the same room with him, you know it. 11.15

An athlete in the greatest of all contests — the struggle not to beoverwhelmedby anything that happens. 3.4 To follow the logos in all things is to be relaxed and energetic, joyful and serious at once. 10.12 The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t. 6.47 It’s time you realize that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet. 12.19Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly. 7.56 If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, of future and past–then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you. 12.3 The others obey their own lead, follow their own impulses. Don’t be distracted. Keep walking. Follow your own nature, and follow Nature–along the road they share. 5.3 The things ordained for you–teach yourself to be at one with those. And to the people who share them with you–treat them with love. With real love. 6.39 Today Iescapedfrom anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions–not outside. 9.13